TO-DAY'S ANNIVERSARIES.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 14162, 30 September 1911, Page 9

TO-DAY'S ANNIVERSARIES.

SEPTEMBER 30.

King Richard 11. deposed .. 1399 Nockor. financier to Louis XVI., died 1734 ftev. Georgp Whittfield died .. 177' Feargup O'Connor arrested for sedition 1812 Augusto Comt-o died .. •■ 1857

George Whitcficld.—The famous preacher is regarded as one of the founders of Methodism. He was the son of an innkeeper, but was sent at the age of eighteen to Oxford, where tho Wesleys bad already laid the foundations of Methodism, and Whitefield ere long became conspicuous amongst ymmr; enthusiasts for zeal, austerity, and labour too groat for his strength. He took deacon's orders in the Anglican Church, and his first sermon in Gloucester Cathedral had a striking effect. Hβ next sailed for Georgia, at the invitation of Wesley: there he created an immense impression. He.returned to England, and tho rest of his life was spent as a travelling preacher. Wherever he appeared, crowds flocked to listen to his irresistible earnestness and eloquence. Workmen would hear him in thousands, the tears streaming down their grimy cheeks, while oven cold intellects like Chesterfield. Bolingbrol Hirme, and Benjamin Franklin came under his influence. Ere long he separated from Wesley on doctrinal grounds—Wesley being •an Arminian, and Whitofield a Calvinist. Although ho did not desire it, force of circumstances made him the founder of a sect which becamo known as tho Calvinistio Methodists, and the wealthy Countess of Huntingdon became his friend and endowed many chapels. Whitefield's greatest" gift was his marvellous voice, clear, full, and musical — capable of reaching 20,000 men on a I hillside; his published writings hardly rise above the commonplace. He was not very happy in his wife; her death "set his mind much at rest." The great preacher died in his fifty-sixth year.

Jacques Necker.—The famous financial minister of Franco might have been i the regenerator of his country, had not ; fate and princes ruled otherwise. He • was born at Geneva, and started life as j a clerk, but in course of time his finan- ! rial genius asserted itself, and he was fiven State employment. At length, in is forty-fourth year, he accepted the onerous task of putting the almost bankrupt Treasury of France on a sounder footing. He devoted five years to his undertaking, and showed himself an honest, prudent, and sagacious Minister. Hβ carried out large retrenchments, brought about a large reform of the glaring inequality of taxes, and mooted many other reforms which proved hateful to tho Court party, nnd eventually brought about his downfall. In his retreat to Geneva ho carried with him the reepect of all Frenchmen. He was recalled to his former office seven years later, and quickly made himself the popular of the hour by recommending the Bummoning of the States-General. In advising the King (Louis XVI.) to take this step, although naturally he could not foresee it, he was ushering in the Great Revolution, for the National Assembly, beginning by depriving the King of many of his privileges, finally ended in executing him. Louis wab about to dismiss him again, when the fall of Bastille frightened him into recalling him amid the wildest popular enthusiasm. But although Necker had great schemes for regenerating the country, he had not the qualities to bring them to success. He died neglected and forgotten in his seventy-second year.

Feargus Edward O'Connor.—This Irishman was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, called to the Irish Bar, and entered Parliament for Cork in his thirty-sixth year. At first a supporter of O'Conncll, he became estranged from his leader, and devoted himself to the ' cause of the working classes in England, i and became a loading light in the ■, Chartist movement —demanding universal suffrage, annual Parliaments, The movement threatened gigan- ; tic proportions, but after an abortive 1 attempt at insurrection in 1848, it died a natural death. O'Connor's eloquence and enthusiasm, helped no doubt by his i gigantic stature and strength, gave him vast popularity as a leader, and his ! paper, "The Northern Star," did much '■ to advance tho cause of Chartism. He figured in numerous riots among cmi nWees of manufacturing districts. In 1852 he was found to be hopelessly in- j sane, and three years later he died in i 1 hie fifty-ninth year.